D&D 5E Are "evil gods" necessary? [THREAD NECRO]

[Ruin Explorer]

Everyone Wars. It's the geopolitical version of pooping.

All your points arguably hold up except this one I think. Most humans think war is bad, especially ones who have experienced war, and war gods in historic cultures are very often bad/evil gods - them and greed-type gods tend to be the most "evil" gods in real pantheons. You often get a distinction between the "victory" or "military brilliance" god and the "war" god too.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Athena?

Ares is the war god. Athena is the victory god. They're different.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Which questions the mode in which portfolios are generated and assigned.

Do you just get gods of rot when a divine being goes through an awkward teenage phase and decides to be edgy? When a large enough mushroom planation is planted? Can Rot be assigned to someone who is a neat freak who absolutely hates rot? Are there gods with no portfolio?

 

[Alzrius]

Athena is the victory god.

No, that was Nike.

EDIT: Though admittedly, there was some conflation between her and Nike, so I suppose your point has merit.

 

[Vaalingrade]

All your points arguably hold up except this one I think. Most humans think war is bad.

We still do it even if we know it's unpleasant and filthy and inherently wrong to do at all.

Like poop.

Yeah, I said it. Poop is sin.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We still do it even if we know it's unpleasant and filthy and inherently wrong to do at all.

Like poop.

Yeah, I said it. Poop is sin.

I just don't think that's at all a good comparison. It's not like poop. You don't have to do it - a lot of cultures - almost all cultures - are smart enough to recognise this. And re: poop, many cultures, particularly non-Western ones, don't have the same degree of "natural body processes are sinful" attitude, so I think that weakens the comparison further.

War gods are more likely to be the "we pray that it doesn't happen" kind which you explained for some other things, which really seems to have been the Greek attitude to Ares, for example.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No, that was Nike.

EDIT: Though admittedly, there was some conflation between her and Nike, so I suppose your point has merit.

Good thing you edited, because this was about to get LINK HEAVY lol.

And to say "some conflation" is a very serious understatement. There was vast conflation.

Why don't I quote your own Wikipedia article lol:

Nike and Athena are both associated with victory, which has resulted in contestation over the origins of Nike.

 

[Voadam]

Ares is the war god. Athena is the victory god. They're different.

Ares was the brutality of war.
Athena was the strategic aspects of warfare.

From Wikipedia:

As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. Athena represented the disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares, the patron of violence, bloodlust, and slaughter—"the raw force of war".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Ares is the war god. Athena is the victory god. They're different.

Nope. Both are war gods, Athene just had better PR.

War gods were not universally seen negatively. There can be defensive wars, and there arguably can be justified offensive wars. Granted many times historically people's justifications have been questionable, but still. Whether given war is "justified" is often debated, and flattening such complex concepts into childish dichotomies of good and evil will just make your fantasy setting less nuanced.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Ares was the brutality of war.
Athena was the strategic aspects of warfare.

From Wikipedia:

As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. Athena represented the disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares, the patron of violence, bloodlust, and slaughter—"the raw force of war".

I mean you're just making a different oversimplification to me, you're not really shedding any additional light.

The point is, the Greeks clearly recognised a bad "war" god and non-bad "strategy/victory/discipline" god.

Nope. Both are war gods, Athene just had better PR.

Absolutely not, and that's not a reasonable position, nor supported by history. Indeed I would go so far as to say it is illustrative of a profound misunderstanding of ancient and classical Greek culture. This isn't about "PR". This was about different concepts, ideas, and ideals being associated with each.

War gods were not universally seen negatively.

Good thing I didn't say that, eh?

I said the a lot of cultures recognised that war was not a good thing, or certainly high-intensity war.

EDIT - I will add that the few cultures I can think of which did have positive "war gods" were ones which rather troubling cultures which engaged in large-scale and frequent acts of "Evil" by D&D's standards. By D&D's standards for, example, most eras of Rome's existence are of a very clearly Evil-with-a-capital-e society. Your objection seems to be more that D&D has/had capital-e Evil and capital-g Good at all.